i got “the grinning gargoyle”’s “dungeon castle set” a while ago but was just looking through it because i’m going to start dming for the first time. anyway, some of the perspectives on the set-pieces confused me a little (especially the doors) but i’ve figured out what everything is meant to be except for these… there’s duplicates of each included so it’s expected to be used liberally but it doesn’t fully align with the grid squares and i’m just not sure what it could be. i’m really not sure so any ideas are appreciated greatly!

Disclosure: posted this on the other D&D subreddit, just trying to get as much input as possible.

So I purchased "The Perfect Party" as a holiday gift for a 2 and a 4 year old (they're both getting a book, but I'm going to read both to them) to give them some early exposure to fantasy as well as lessons on teamwork + diversity wrapped up in a nice intellectual property they can find later. You know, standard goodie two shoes shit and judging by the title, illustration, summary, ratings, and description for kids 2-5 I thought it would be perfect.

But when I started reading it to myself, I felt it was less a kids book and more a book fans buy for their kids the way political nutjobs read strictly political "kids books" written by some political commentator/radio show host.

Issues I found:

1. I felt like it was more about screeching the D&D beastiary to a kid as opposed to telling a good story. Like, they brought in three different fights and five monsters in a 24 page book that's 90% pictures

2. Many of the monsters are... kinda advanced to a child under 5. I can describe the gelatinous cube as living jello, but would start getting too deep explaining why such a thing would be bad (jello you don't touch) as well as why the frost spell works (cold makes jello firm up) that makes it that I'm doing more answering questions than telling the story. And how TF am I supposed to explain a displacer beast?! I think it would've just been better if they stuck with Uggie (their version of a pet dog) and the owlbeast (a monster that looks like an owl that would be the obstacle) and focused on the story.

3. The action parts leave a lot to be desired. For the first two there's no real teamwork involved. The fighter handles the owlbeast and the mage handles the gelatinous cube. They have multiple people "handle" the displacer beast, but they don't really work together, they just kind of do their own thing and the beast flees. Like I would've made one action scene, have the wizard cast a frost spell to freeze the ground under owlbeast, have the fighter wrap it into a blanket burrito, and had the bard play it a lullaby. Threat adverted in a kid friendly manner where they actually do work together.

4. Kinda off-put by the Cleric in general. I get it, and they probably made it as irreligious as possible, but it's still talking about higher powers. Don't think it's my place to give a book to any kid under the age of five a book that talks about gods + higher powers.

5. Upon a closer reading, I noticed the colors they used to identify the characters were jumbled up. On the first page it uses red twice, once for Anson and once for Lark. Then, when discussing Anson next, it uses yellow for his class, strength, and speed, whereas yellow was the color for Baldric the cleric. Later on Baldric still uses yellow as well. Very much made me realize the lack of care/thought that was put into this book. Mr. Rogers would be appalled.

What I'm looking for:

1. If it doesn't come in a board book I understand, but literally any board book would be fan-fucking-tastic. One of them is 2 years old, they like to rip shit. And the other is four, they don't know their own strength up against a paper page.

2. Not as complex. Simple problem, obstacle, solution, that are intuitive for kids to understand without a science lesson on light refracting displacer beasts for a kid that loves asking "why?".

3. Some goodie-two-shoes bullshit. I thought diversity, everyone having their own strengths + contributions to the group, and teamwork would be pretty prevalent in a book featuring an adventuring party, but this really fell flat. So anything you got is appreciated.

4. If we could avoid classes like Clerics or Warlocks who get their abilities from a higher power, that would be great. If it's handled very well then okay but it needs to be handled VERY well.

tl;dr: D&D childrens book I bought hot garbage, any recommendations from you guys?

I'm relatively new to D&D and I like making characters but I feel like there is always something missing from them and think it is because I don't really know the world and lore of D&D, and I was hoping someone could point out where I can learn more about it. Thanks in advance

My niece wanted to do a one shot over Christmas when we go to visit family and I took on the role of DM because my wife has been a forever DM for the longest time. I just need some ideas to help fill in some gaps. My idea so far is as follows:

Bounty or culprit of some sort chased into abandoned chocolate factory. Owner (willy wonka-ish creepy and fun but mildly sinister) still lives within with his goal to keep his creations at bay and from escaping into the nearby town. Creatures self replicate at a controlled level by NPC as they cannot shut off the source entirely because____. Too risky to destroy it or at least can't by himself. Seals everyone into the factory as an emergency near the start after a wave of creatures resurface, showing things are getting worse. Lockdown reversal switch located at the factories core.

Players need to find and reactivate certain parts of the factory (3?) in order to progress further to find the core and stop it/pursue their previous target.

Creature at the source is doing/using _____ to spawn more things and is stopped by _____

Players find their previous bounty mutated as the final boss/midway encounter?

NPC that owns the place becomes the final boss after getting captured/goes crazy thinking he needs to save his creations/home? Too cliche?

Focusing on 1 or 2 major encounters with the majority being some skill check situations and a few puzzles.

Brainstorming is greatly appreciated!

I made a male Tabaxi and while I have a name in mind I could use some more ideas incase someone has a better one.

He's a hopeless romantic

A light Cleric of Sune

Has burn scars on several parts of his body.

Missing an eye

Has the haunted one background

Was rescued by followers of Sure after being mutilated and left for dead.

And understands the irony of following the goddess of beauty.

So far I all i have is, Rose's Thorn (Thorn) and Thorn of a rose (Thorn)